Aradia Megido
Aradia Megido, also known by her Trollian handle, , is one of the trolls. The handle she uses alludes to two things within her life. One, , refers to the end of the world, which she considered important. relates to the fact that she has died multiple times, but has managed to come back, or "rise from the dead", in a way. could also refer to the fact that she uncovered the Sgrub Beta, which causes the apocalypse. "Arise" is also an anagram to Aries (♈), her associated zodiac sign and horn shape. Etymology Her name was suggested by Mikker and Megido was suggested by fizzix. It appears to come from Aradia, a goddess and witch from Neo-Pagan folklore. A messianic principal figure of Charles Leland's 1899 work Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches, is also named Aradia. She is said to be the daughter of the Roman moon goddess Diana and Lucifer. Lucifer is a Latin word literally meaning "light-bearer", a name for the dawn appearance of the planet Venus, heralding daylight. Venus in Aries is in its detriment, because Aries is the opposite sign to Libra, which Venus rules. This Aradia was sent down to Earth to teach the oppressed about witchcraft to use against the upper classes and the Roman Catholic Church. This is echoed by teaching the Handmaid with which to challenge the highest class troll of all – the Condesce. Megido is the place where a number of religions believe the final battle will take place (the word Armageddon is derived from the Hebrew name for Mt. Megiddo). It is also the name of a known excavation site, referring to her love of archeology and her sign being 'the Sign of the Excavator'. This links with Aradia's knowing of the apparent apocalypse- as well as her Trollian handle. 'Meido' is a Japanese word for the underworld, which ties to her death theme. The word 'Megido' also contains the Japanese word 'meido', or 'maid', fitting her title as Maid of Time and her dancestor 's role as an 'Asian schoolgirl'. Dave even calls her dancestor an . The word is also an almighty spell from the Shin Megami Tensei series of video games. Aradia being dead by the start of Hivebent may be a reference to the Islamic view of the Afterlife, which is represented by a black-and-white ram. A less blunt symbol of death is the passage of time, referencing her role as a Hero of Time. Biography Aradia used to be something of an archaeologist, and her hive was surrounded by dig site trenches of her own doing. She was present when a meteor from The Reckoning travelled back and crashed nearby, revealing the presence of the Frog Temple and carrying with it Lil Cal and a deceased alternate Aradiabot, both severely damaged. She sent Cal on to Kanaya Maryam for repairs and spent some time exploring the Frog Temple. She is able to hear the voices of the dead, which she has heard since she was young. The voices have been getting louder ever since she was in a fatal role playing accident; the magnified voices led her to descend into fatalistic resignation about everything and left her only concerned in dealing with the impending apocalypse of which the voices warned. Aradia's Fetch Modus, the Ouija, is uncontrolled by her. She says that it's what she gets from the sylladex, and it is She goes on to say how they are sometimes cooperative with what she wants, but are commonly cryptic in their choosing. Roleplaying Some time before the events of Hivebent, Aradia played Flarp as a member of Team Charge alongside Tavros Nitram. She was distracted at the time of Tavros' paralyzing accident, and subsequently felt guilty about not being able to help. Although advised against it by Terezi Pyrope, a close friend at the time, she attempted revenge against the person responsible, Vriska Serket. Upon the urging of , Vriska elected to strike back at Aradia after she summoned spirits of the dead to haunt Vriska over her crippling of Tavros. Vriska took control of Sollux Captor, made him fly to Aradia's hive and eat Mind Honey. The resultant eye blasts levelled Aradia's hive and killed both Aradia and her lusus. Hivebent After death, she came to learn that the Frog Temple contained technology and/or code which would be important concerning the impending apocalypse. She documented the code present, and Sollux adapted it into the trolls' version of Sburb. Being the original discoverer of the technology leading to the creation of Sgrub, she knows quite a bit more than other trolls about the game, and as a result, serves as a guide or unofficial leader of sorts to the other trolls. She also psychokinetically decapitates the Frog Temple's giant frog head statue and keeps it for herself, later prototyping it. After entering the Medium, she tier-2-prototypes herself. Equius Zahhak provides a soulbot to give her a much-needed physical form. Aradia travels to the Land of Maps and Treasure to confront Vriska, brutally beating her and leaving her to bleed to death. Over the course of the game she gathers an army of alternate selves from doomed timelines and uses them in the battle against the Black King to suppress his ability to release the Vast Glub. When Jack Noir appears shortly before the trolls can claim their ultimate reward, Aradia summons a teleportation pad and transports all the trolls into hiding in The Veil, leaving behind her army of alternate selves to confront Jack. All of the alternate selves are effortlessly killed in the confrontation. Post-Hivebent Aradia remains as a sprite in her soulbot even after the death of all the Lususprites. She refuses to talk to any of the newly-discovered human kids, only relenting once to express her distaste for Rose's destructive behaviour and indicates she is fully aware of the role they played in causing the trolls' present blight and their eventual role in resolving it. 4 hours and 13 minutes before some CRITICAL MOMENT, Aradia's soulbot explodes in front of Sollux , Equius , and Nepeta. Her hitherto-unknown dream self was killed on her Quest Bed when Jack attacks Derse, removing her soul from the soulbot (causing its explosion) and ascending her to the Maid of Time. She successfully but temporarily with her new time powers, and in the split second after releasing him jumps through his portal-flashing body to the Green Sun, where she awaits Rose's arrival with The Tumor and Jade Harley's execution of her survival plan (Ironically, this was after telling Rose that she and ). She passes the time by visiting a nearby dream bubble, and she, accompanied by other characters, investigates the origin of . She also talks to a deceased alternate Dave Strider about his new situation and what it means to be a Hero of Time. When Dave, Rose and the alive trolls arrive the Green Sun she and the half-ghost Sollux use their telekinetic abilities to propel the meteor to the Furthest Ring at Rose's behest. Aradia and Sollux stay behind, with Aradia promising to slow Jack Noir down as much as possible. Later she and Sollux are seen as part of Vriska's crew as a , whose powers will be useful once they retrieve the treasure. Last seen in the background of Aradia seems to remain in the dream bubbles watching the skies for 's trails of destruction. New timeline It is unknown whether any aspect regarding her character has changed since the retcon, however she has been to still have been guiding a half-dead Sollux. Aradia and Sollux are seen with Tavros' as well other points of dreambubbles. Because this Sollux was a half-ghost instead of fully alive and blind, this confirms that Aradia has another alive self roaming around since the retcon. It's not known whether the Aradia from the ghost army is pre-retcon or post-retcon. Later she appears alongside the dream ghosts to confront . Alongside Meenah and Tavros, she gleefully strangles and time-freezes him, but is eventually driven back. In Act 7 Aradia makes a brief and presumably final appearance watching the black hole created by the Green Sun's destruction with a smile on her face, regarding back to when she wanted to . Personality and Traits Aradia.]] Aradia lost most of her interest in ordinary activities after her death, and appears to be constantly bored. Breaking things is the only way she is comfortable in showing her emotions. She refuses to allow herself to acknowledge that she has emotions because it makes her feel safe to feel nothing. She also seems to due to her referring to the circumstances that led to her death as . Before her death, she seems to have been happier and more enthusiastic, complimenting Tavros on his sense of fun while playing Flarp. It also appears that she enjoyed the movies of Troll Indiana Jones, which likely influenced her decision to be an archaeologist and use the whipkind strife specibus. Post death, she has since stopped caring about both archaeology and role playing, along with essentially all of her former interests. Her ability to hear the dead, including her ancestors, may have also contributed to her archaeological exploits. They are what led her to the Frog Temple Ruins in the first place, shortly before her death. Aradia is obsessed with temporal inevitability, and her motivations usually involve doing things solely because she knows they have to happen. It is this attitude which often allows time loops to form in the first place, and easily makes her a pawn of Sgrub and whatever beings influence the timeline, including , who likely had her killed for this purpose. After entering the Soulbot made by Equius, she appears to have regained some emotions. These seem to be violently extreme, although it is possible she's simply forgotten how to handle emotions, having spent so much time without them. As a ghost, she once told Vriska that she was with her own death, but shortly after she enters the soulbot, she sights out Vriska and beats her to death for what appeared to be revenge, but might have been to ensure Vriska's ascension to God Tier. After getting used to the body she still appears to be fatalistic and jaded, but now a lot more violent and confrontational, though she does acknowledge certain trolls (such as Karkat) as friends. This change is probably brought on by the violent tendencies from the blue blood in the soulbot. Karkat has called her a , and suggests that she would be closer to her original personality if she were to be properly brought back to life. This is more or less true once Aradia achieves god tier and is, officially, very much alive and intends to stay that way. She is enthusiastic and kind even when talking about depressing things. She is convinced that there is no reason to grieve, and thinks that things are going to turn out okay. Considering her knowledge of the time stream, it is likely that she knows some hopeful things later in the timeline, as she knew Sollux would see her again, but he would be blind. Aradia has abandoned her typing quirk now, even though she used it prior to her death. This change might be related to her claim that she feels . Relationships Vriska Serket Vriska attempted to befriend her when they were beginning Sgrub. Vriska found it odd that Aradia did not care that she had killed her, but tried to make it up to her anyway by passing along a robotic body built for her by Equius, which she was trying to present as a gift from herself. Aradia ended up connecting it to Equius, and kicked Vriska off the blue team, causing Vriska to at her. After fusing with the robot and regaining emotions, Aradia killed Vriska in an act of vengeance, thus allowing her to ascend to god tier. After being on Vriska's ship in the afterlife, Vriska claimed to have been and , implying that the two are most likely friends again. Equius Zahhak Equius is quite possibly the only person still capable of weirding Aradia out in her ghost state. Later, when Equius gives her a robot body (with blue blood instead of dark red, an intentional choice to match his own caste) programmed to have romantic feelings for him, Aradia reacts very badly. She proceeds to , rip her new heart out, beat it to a pulp, smack the shit out of Equius, and then surprisingly kiss him, not under the influence of her programming in any way. The exact nature of this relationship is unclear, though it seems they are wavering back and forth between the flushed and caliginous quadrants of troll romance, which is fairly common. Later during the Ministrife, Aradia mentions that she most likely ending their difficult relationship for good. Sollux Captor Aradia seems to have a longstanding and close relationship with Sollux. It is popularly believed that they were at one point in a romantic relationship; although this has never been confirmed. tells us that at one point, she wondered whether Aradia and Sollux were in a flushed relationship, though later she crossed out the possibility. This is not enough to definitely pin down their relationship, and when a reader asked Andrew Hussie on his Formspring what kind of relationship they had, he said that " ". Some time after being killed by Vriska through Sollux (and forgiving them both), Aradia had continued to converse with Sollux as before and the two had cooperated to begin their session of Sgrub. Becoming increasingly troubled by her doomsaying, Sollux eventually when Aradia revealed that the game would destroy the world. After entering her soulbot, she barely said anything to Sollux, but she chose to spend her last few moments before it exploded to reconcile with Sollux. She seemed glad to talk to Sollux in dream bubbles and led him back to his friends after he died. Aradia opted to stay behind rather than proceed to the new session and Sollux decided to stay with her. The two were later seen together on as . However, claiming that the adventure made him feel dirty, Sollux decided to shortly after Tavros, while Aradia went on ahead with Vriska and her crew. However, he did offer to , with Aradia eagerly responding in agreement. After the Game Over flash, it appears that Aradia and Sollux remain together in both the pre- and post-retcon timelines. Tavros Nitram Prior to her death, Aradia got along well with the trolls. She was good friends with her roleplaying partner, Tavros, and seems to be among the few trolls who showed him respect. Before their infamous FLARPing revenge cycle, Tavros could be seen with Aradia during which she claimed that Tavros and shouldn't if he were in trouble. However, right before , Aradia had not been there to help him and is seen later to Terezi regarding Tavros's injury. Terezi Pyrope Aradia seems to have gotten along well with Terezi since around the beginning of their FLARPing days. After Tavros's paralysis, Aradia had expressed her guilt and self-blame to Terezi regarding Tavros's injury after which Terezi consoled her and told her that she (Terezi) was distracted by Doc Scratch too. The two also together agreed that their teams' . After this discussion, Terezi attempted to not get revenge from Vriska to avenge Tavros, however Aradia the urges of to . Before their meteor journey to new session, Terezi claimed that and that . This continued friendliness in their conversations implies that the two remain friends. Karkat Vantas After her death, she does not maintain her earlier friendships, instead focusing on the upcoming apocalypse. Karkat considers her to be to the point that he doesn't even want to talk to her, however he claimed that . Kanaya Maryam Kanaya apparently talks to her a lot and Aradia refers to it as bothering her but still finds it kind of flattering that she wants to talk to her so much. B1 Kids While exploring dream bubbles, Aradia got along well with Jade and with an alternate Dave. She says she regrets ignoring them when she had the chance to talk. After talking to Rose, Rose referred to Aradia as Following Vriska's pirate crew much later on, Aradia had spoken to John about how she felt about the crew's adventure, unintentionally creeping out John and the claim that . Lusus/Kernelsprite Aradia is unable to prototype her Lusus, dead before the game and presumably incinerated in an accident by Sollux's release of psionic energy. Her lusus appears to have been . Instead, she used the desecrated head from the Frog Temple in the first prototyping. It is stated that using the frog head from the temple was . It seems that this is because this prototyping is what leads to the exile of the Black Queen. When Aradia entered the medium, she self-prototyped the Frogsprite. In this new form, she took on the Frogsprite's body, including webbed fingers and a Kermit the Frog-esque neck fringe, but with her old head and sleeves. Her horns also appear to have been replaced by a set of froglike eyes. As a Sprite, Aradia has (or maybe had) access to important game information similar to Davesprite, but due to the nature of a Kernelsprite, she cannot communicate it without being obtuse. This provides absolutely no change from her previous behavior. Trivia *Aradia, unlike most of the trolls, has an ancestor who is not dead by the start of Hivebent. She shares this trait with Feferi Peixes and Sollux Captor. *Along with Jane, she is one of only two characters to have , although in Aradia's case it was a doomed timeline Aradiabot who re-entered in the alpha timeline. **Interestingly, they both happen to be Maids. **They have themes cycling around life and death. **They both had red color schemes at some point, and blue color schemes at other points. **They come from post-scratch universes (B2 and A2). *One of her songs, Arisen Anew, takes a quote from Doctor Who, a television series centered around time travel. **Luka Megurine, a Vocaloid (popular voice synthesizer), can also be heard. Her lyrics are "Toki no hime wa inu wo tometa" which means "The Princess of Time has stopped the dog". *Aradia and her dancestor are the only characters asked by a third party to in a more appropriate manner. *Aradia is the only post-scratch troll with canonically flat teeth. Damara, her dancestor, seems to share this trait as well as the Handmaid, her ancestor. Aradia gained pointy teeth when she entered her robot and got her flat teeth back after becoming a God Tier. This might have to do something with the conception that highbloods generally have their teeth more pointy. *Aradia is the "Ace of Pentacles" in the Homestuck tarot card deck. She can also be seen on the "Five of Wands" card with most of the pre-act 6 cast. *The death of Aradia's dream self might be a reference to the Roman Agonalia festival. In the festival, a ram was sacrificed to a guardian god (which could be a reference to Bec Noir). ru:Арадия Мегидо Category:Homestuck characters Category:Trolls Category:Rust bloods Category:Sprite components